Susan Atkins' First Husband (Donald Lee Laisure)

 

 

 Donald Lee Laisure Sr., was born on April 18th, 1929. He served in the Marine Corps in WWII. While many articles state that he was from Texas, I have been unable to find any census information regarding if he grew up there. Most of his census infomation shows the multiple marriages and divorces that he had over the years. Most of the evidence showing that he lived in Texas is from when he was an adult. I found a census record from 1930, though I am unsure if it is actually him, but if so, he may have been born in Kansas. Despite having been in the Marine Corps he has lied in the past about being a 'retired general officer'. Also interestingly, he must have lied about his age when serving in WWII, because even if he went in in 1945, he would have only been 16 years old (though, I have heard many stories about teens at this time lying about their age to serve in WWII). 

At some point Donald seems to have a daughter in 1964, and a son with his wife Williamae in 1966. He also had a son with wife Wilhelmina in 1958. 

On June 28th,  1968, Donald Laisure pled guilty to a charge of credit card forgery (a felony) in the state of Texas. He was given five years of probation. In 1971, Laisure pawned some of his guns, and then later returned to get them back. When he went to get them back, he falsely stated that he hadn't evern been convicted of a crime punishable for more than one year. This brought more legal trouble, which can be read online, where seemed to argue the verbiage of whether he was really considered convicted or not. 

He is most notably known for having married Susan Atkins. He stated that he met her on the freeway in 1965. Apparently, Laisure had been corresponding with Susan for years (and the power of ESP), but was lying to her the whole time. Laisure would refer to her as 'Honey Bear' in the press.  He told her that he was a millionaire (which he wasn't), and had enough money and power to buy Susan out of jail. Laisure stated the had spent 6.4 million to free her, and would try to get a pardon on the white house level. She found out he was lying three months after being married. 

 

They got married while she was in prison, on September 2nd, 1981. She became his 35th wife (allegedly), but divorced when he reportedly wanted to marry again. They were legally divorced on October 13th, 1982. They did not have any children together. Despite sources stating that Susan had the marriage annulled, they were legally divorced in the state of Texas. In an interview with the Houston Press, Laisure stated that he got divorced in Cuba, 'signed by Castro himself'.

On an episode of Maury in 1993, Donald appeared and had stated that he had been married 45 times (at that point). Laisure talked big and played up to the stereotype of the rich country Texas man. He also apparently insisted on using a dollar sign to replace the 's' in his last name (Lai$sure). On the Maury episode, he stated that Susan was innocent, but in the 2009 interview with the Houston Press, he said that she was "guilty as hell".

Marriages and Divorces (some of them at least):

Willamae B Laisure: ? Sometime around 1966
Wilhelmina Laisure: ? Sometime around 1958
Veronica M Laisure: October 17th 1959 - ?
Wanda L Laisure: December 20th, 1968 - July 28th, 1969
Muriel A Laisure: June 22nd, 1970 - November 8th, 1971
Lynne H Laisure: December 30th, 1971 - September 26th, 1977
Ester L Laisure: February 16th, 1979 - December 23rd, 1980
Susan D. Laisure (Atkins) - September 2nd 1981 - October 13th, 1982
Janet L Laisure: July 14th 1983 - May 17th 1984
Terrie L Laisure: June 15 1984 - February 10th 1986

On September 25th, 2011, Donald Laisure passed away at the age of 82. He is buried at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. 

[SOURCES]

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/78648422/donald-l-laisure
http://www.cielodrive.com/susan-atkins.php
https://www.houstonpress.com/news/a-chat-with-the-husband-of-the-recently-deceased-manson-girl-6732234
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/460/709/190850/
https://youtu.be/SZVPqXnUQQw

Sybil Brand Institute [SBI]

 

 

Sybil Brand Institute was a four story concrete building created in 1963, that served as a jail for women in Monterey Park, California. It was named after the activist of the same name, and set to be a minimum security facility. While it had the capacity to house 900-950 inmates, it had reached 2800 at one point in time, with between 700-850 people detained in 1982. 

The visitation area

 

That same year, there was a law suit between the inmates of Sybil Brand and the county of Los Angeles about unequal privileges between the female inmates at the facility, and male inmates at other facilities. For example, the women were only allowed one hour of outdoor recreation four times a week, whereas men were allowed daily recreation. I am unsure what the end result of this lawsuit was. 

 It  In 1997, the jail was closed due to damage from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which caused it to be in poor physical condition. It is still managed by the sheriff's department. When the jail was closed, the inmates were transferred to the newer Twin Towers Complex. There has been talk in the past of renovating the building and opening it again as a prison. It has modern looking prison rooms, hallways, rec areas, visitation areas, and cells. The walls had a pink color, having been a women's prison, but they tend to be painted over for filming purposes. Productions used to film at about 2-3 projects a month. It used to be rentable for about 400 dollars a day.

 

Since then, the jail has been used in movies and tv, such as Reno 911, Twin Peaks, Legally Blonde, Arrest and Trial, Gangland, X-Foiles, America's Most Wanted, Desperate Housewives,  and 24. The jail has housed notable prisoners such as Susan McDougall and Susan Atkins (where she confessed the infamous story to Ronnie Howard, Virginia Graham, and other women). 

In 2007, the jail had been under a 100 million dollar project to refurbish it which took 14 months, for nothing to happen. The plans for it were delayed, because it failed to meet many state standards. The paint on the walls peels off, tile and ceiling panels have popped off, and there is evidence of water damage to roof (as seen in pictures from 2010, the roof is leaking in multiple areas).

 

 On top of that, the cells in the jail are too small for current California regulations. It was scheduled to reopen in 2011 with the renovations. I could not find any official article stating when the reopening happened. At the time though, there were people that didn't want the jail to be opened again, since it was in a lower income side of the city, and it may have caused crime to get worse. On the other hand, those that advocated for the jail to be opened again, argued that it would save the county 300 million dollars in construction costs, on top of there being at least 1000 detainees waiting to be housed somewhere at the time. I do not believe SBI housed any inmates though, once this renovation happened. 

In 2019, the area was made unavailable for filming. According the the website 'places earth', the jail is awaiting demolition and rebuilding. 

[SOURCES]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Brand_Institute

https://clui.org/ludb/site/sybil-brand-institute

https://rs.locationshub.com/location_detail.aspx?id=050-6775&photopage=2

https://locoscout.com/location_detail.php?location_id=196

https://www.placesearth.com/usa/california/los_angeles/sybil_brand_inst/sybil_brand0.shtml

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1839980.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-oct-16-me-sybil16-story.html

Bobby Beausoleil's Music Career

| Bobby Beausoleil’s Music Career | 

 

Bobby Beausoleil, was born Robert Kenneth Beausoleil on November 6^th, 1947, in Santa Barbara, California. He is most notorious for having been a member of the Mansion family, where he murdered Gary Hinman. 

Gary Hinman

On July 25^th, 1969, Beausoleil, Mary Brunner, and Susan Atkins went to Hinman’s house. There have been reports that Beausoleil was sold bad mescaline from Hinman, which he later sold to bikers and the bikers wanted their money back. Another report has stated that Charles Manson believed Hinman owned his house, cars, had money in stocks and bonds, and was to come into an inheritance of 20,000 dollars, the equivalent of 138,000 in 2019. When asked for the money, it turned out that Gary Hinman had no money to give them. Beausoleil called Manson, who told him to keep Hinman captive and try to get the money from Gary. Eventually Manson and another family member, Bruce Davis, came to the house with Beausoleil and the others. 

Mary Brunner

 

Once Manson arrived, he took a sword and struck Gary Hinman on the head, slicing the left side of his face and ear. Hinman, a practicing Buddhist, did not believe in violence, and asked Manson to take the others and leave. Charles left with Bruce Davis in one of Gary Hinman’s cars, while the others stayed behind. Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins stitched Hinman’s ear together with dental floss while he repeatedly asked them to leave. 

On July 27^th, Beausoleil felt that he had no other choice but to kill Gary Hinman, as he thought that if he let him go, Hinman would tell the cops on Manson and the family. Beausoleil then stabbed Hinman in the chest twice, while Hinman repeated a buddhist chant. While Hinman was dying, Beausoleil, Susan Atkins, and Mary Brunner smothered him with a pillow. Once he died, Beausoleil wrote “Political Piggy” on a wall in Hinman’s blood, then dipping his hand in the blood to print a paw print, in an effort to make it seem like it was all the doing of the Black Panthers (As a part of the plan to initiate Helter Skelter, a race war that Manson and the family believed in).

On April 18^th, 1970, Beausoleil was convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to death. In 1972, the state of California ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, and thus his sentenced was commuted to Life. 

In the meantime, Beausoleil has created multiple pieces of art, and a musical discography. His albums span from 1981 all the way to 2018, with singles and compilations in between. Allegedly, a majority of his music was created with permission from the prison authorities, when he was transferred to a different prison in Oregon.

Somehow, he has been able to have some sort of social media presence, whether it’s maintained by him or people that he knows, I do not know. Interestingly, there is a tumblr, vimeo, facebook page, bandcamp, twitter, and more for him. Honestly, it was shocking to know this, considering how so many other people from the Manson family seem to have no contact with society otherwise.

His website: http://bobbybeausoleil.com/index.html

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/c/BobbyBeausoleilMusic

Weird video with even weirder recommendations: https://youtu.be/d7YPnEgumSU

bandcamp: https://bobbybeausoleil.bandcamp.com/music

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BobbyBeauSoleil/

The Mothers of Invention, with sex offender Roy Estrada in the front right.

What shocked me the most, was that Beausoleil was a background singer on the album Freak Out! By Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. I have been a Zappa fan for over ten years, and had no idea about this. Apparently he is not credited on the album itself, though you can find him credited on the Frank Zappa Wiki, Wiki Jawaka. I am not sure which songs he is on in particular, though I can only guess them potentially being ‘I’m Not Satisfied’ (though those vocals sound like Frank and Jimmy Carl Black), ‘Motherly Love’ (Where the intro seems to have multiple voices, including ones I can’t identify), the end of ‘Help I’m a Rock’ or better known as ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ on certain rips of the CD, ‘I Ain’t Got No Heart’, and/or ‘Go Cry On Somebody Else’ Shoulder”. It's ironic how he was on this Zappa album, which includes the song 'Trouble Every Day' an anti-racism song, then later tried to frame the Black Panthers after the Hinman murder.

video:  https://youtu.be/YNLMY9A07Tc

Post script edit: I would just like to say, that I've been doing a lot of reading about Manson, the family, and those involved. I don't know everything. But I want to clarify that in many sources, Beausoleil has stated that he wasn't ever a member of the family. In some books, they list him as an associate, never really a family member, and other sources I have found online, would say that he was. From now on, I will say that he was associate, unless I come across more information. 

[SOURCES]

cielodrive.com

wikipedia

https://bbreferencearchive.tumblr.com/

http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Bobby_Beausoleil